been harder for most soldiers to come to grips with than the death of a friend." The book also speaks of "the aversion most mammals have to killing con- specifics (members of their own spe- cies)," and notes that "pseudospeciation, the ability of humans and some other primates to classify certain members of their own species as 'other,' can neutral- ize the threshold of inhibition so they can kill conspecifics." But, because of "phylogenetically strong inhibitions," the soldier who kills "is left with his psy- chological afterburn." Holloway, who as an Army psychia- trist repeatedly argued against deny- ing the psychological impact of killing, can understand the Army's wariness. ' s soon as we ask the question of how killing affects soldiers, we acknowledge we're causing harm, and that raises the question of whether the good we're ac- complishing is worth the harm we're causing," he said. The Army, Holloway said, is reluctant to label any of its heroes as psychological casualties. The mili- tary,s concern, he said, is that "if we get into this business of talking about kill- ing people, we're going to pathologize an absolutely necessary experience." Only one job in the Army doesn't require putting the mission first: chap- lains aren't even addressed by rank, only as "chaplain." They are already ordained clergy when they enter military service; the Chaplain Center and School, at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, teaches no the- ology. Chaplains respond to soldiers coping with the aftermath of combat according to the denomination of the chaplain and the religion of the soldier. Chaplain Kenneth Bush, a Presbyterian minister and a lieutenant colonel who is the school's senior training developer, met me in his office wearing a black cross sewn to the collar of his camouflage fa- tigues. ' s a Christian, I'd tell soldiers that their feelings are normal and help them understand the context in which killing takes place in war," he said. "If a soldier is going to war, it's because he raised his right hand and swore to defend the United States against all enemies for- eign and domestic. It's not like he's com- mitting murder." When I mentioned the Ten Commandments, Chaplain Bush was quick to respond. "The word in the original Hebrew is ratzach, which the King James Bible, written in 1611, trans- lates as 'kill' ---as in 'Thou shalt not kill,' " ""'""""""""'" ...... tAi '\., '" <",'k>',",,' . t ::,t: ''For your birthday, I've made a list of annoying tics you might want to take care of before you're too old to give a damn anymore. " he said. "But the later, more accurate translations translate that word as 'mur- der,' making the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit murder.' The Old Tes- tament is fùll of killing and war." D an Knox, the son of a Presbyterian minister (he is my wife's cousin), takes no comfort from the Old Testa- ment; he figures that his moral upbring- ing not only got him into a war but also left him disabled by it. A compact, wiry man of fifty-seven, Knox joined the Army in 1966, after seeing a photo essay on the depredations of the Viet- cong in Life. He felt that it was his duty to defend Southeast Asia from Com- munism. Knox's infantry suffered huge casualties, but what bothers him most, more than three decades later, is not the fear, the carnage he witnessed, or the loss of friends but the faces of the people he killed while serving as a helicopter door gunner. "If they told me to kill a whole village, that's what I'd do," he said. "I still see images-a woman and her children rolling in the dust." When I asked Knox how often such images arise, he thought for a moment and said, "Every ten min- utes." Later, he added, "Really, it's more like I'm always looking at a double image. I see you sitting there in that chair, and I'm also watching this funeral party I gunned. In a few minutes, it will be a sampan I gunned on a river, with a woman and her babies falling out of it into the water and kicking around as I shoot them." After serving two tours, he was honorably discharged in 1969. Knox got married, had children, and held him- self together while earning a law degree and pursuing a series of short-lived ca- reers. But in 1995 one of his children died suddenly from a congenital asthma condition, and his mental health deteri- orated. When he told psychologists at the VA. hospital that the killing he had done was torturing him, they changed the subject. "Their basic response was 'Soldier, you did your duty;' " Knox said. He finally found a support group through a VA. -affiliated local facility in subW;- ban San Francisco, where he lives, and he has been meeting with the group's members ever since. In addition, he re- cendy found a sympathetic V.A. psy- chiatrist, and is now getting disability payments from the VA.; he has also re- turned to Vietnam to help build schools